Concise version: Is loading and saving games using serialization an effective solution on Android?

Full version:

I have spent the last few years of my hobby time writing an RPG game in Java. I now want to port it to Android, and have been reading up on Android development.

My lazy decision when writing the PC game was to implement save games using object serialization. All of a game's data is under the object "Game", and is serializable, so saving and loading games was easy. The risk is that a Java update will change the standard objects to the point that I cannot retrieve a saved game, and the player will have to start over. Given the nature of the game (it's more rogue-like than anything else), this was not a problem.

Moving over to Android, I hope to preserve this approach rather than (finally) have to write toString and fromString methods, or figure out how to put all the data into SQLite. I may use the DB later, but to get started, I am trying to avoid taking on more work - redoing the UI is enough.

So, my question is, in your collective experience, is loading and saving games using serialization an effective solution on Android?

For the first time, I have a long-term project (coming up on two years) and have stuck to it, rather than burning out and starting something new. I now have a working game I can play, and going forward am just adding features and content (it's an RPG, so that means more quests, maps, classes, monsters, spells, items etc).

I mention this because I don't think chronically starting over is the way to go. During the two years (started in August, 2010) I have had a few periods where for weeks, or once two months, I didn't do any programming at all. That's okay. Take a break, and come back to it later.

Caveat - if you have a project that never had you eager and interested, then do start a new one, otherwise just wait for the interest to come back.

Add in a small chance that it doesn't correct its path - otherwise the player won't have a decent oppertunity to dodge. If this seems cheesy, keep in mind how many real military munitions don't function quite right ...

I've added AI controls (three types, none of them perfect) to the game, a few new levels and fixed the bug that let people change their direction repeatedly with quick key strokes (which often resulted in them turning into themselves).

By the way - I've nearly got two player (one keyboard) support working - should post that early next week.

What do you folks think of the option of an AI-controlled second player? Good idea or bad idea? Should it be efficient (and hence a good assistent), agreessive (tries to cut you off), or somewhat random (tries to get to the numbers, but misses a percentage of the time)?

Okay, I've added the option to run Nibbles in windowed mode as well as full screen. Its a cheesy hack I'm not happy with, but as I can't find a way to resolve the full screen issues it seems necessary.

You aren't the first person to have trouble; as far as I can tell the issue is with Java entering full-screen mode.

I posted the code for Nibbles on Sun's other java forums - please take a look and see if you can find what I'm doing wrong (if anything). The main () function handles full screen entry, and is located at the end of the class.

Two Player is certainly on my todo list, as is an AI second player. The trick will be handling path finding in a way that isn't always best-case (making for a difficult and not fun experience) and has good performance.

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